Visting Artist: Austin Kleon Brushes Away His Demons
Helloooo GUT Friends!
This August, I’ve invited four Visiting Artists to grab the GUT wheel and take us someplace new, exciting and unexpected. You’ve already heard from Gretchen Rubin. Today, I’m thrilled to pass the pencil over to my dear friend, Austin Kleon.
You probably know of Austin from one of his New York Times bestselling books about creativity: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going. He is a newsletter pioneer, having published every darn week for over 10 years. Hundreds of thousands of people turn to his weekly lists for tips on what to read, watch, listen to, and ponder.
The Atlantic called him “positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet,” (I agree.) In previous lives, Austin worked as a librarian, a web designer, and an advertising copywriter. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife/editor Meg, and two artist-musician kids. You can find him online at austinkleon.com and subscribe to his phenomenal newsletter here (highly recommend!)
I am delighted to share Austin’s work with you today- and Austin is delighted to give GUT subscribers our drawing assignment this week.
Thank you, Austin! Without further ado, I turn the pencil over to you.
The Magic of the Brush by Austin Kleon
I’ve been using these Pentel Pocket Brush Pens for years now. Whenever I get lost or start bombing with my notebook habit, I pull one of them out and start playing around. They’re just kind of magic. I made a video of me using one for a diary entry, if y’all would rather watch than read:
I first became aware of the power of drawing and writing with a brush from my hero Lynda Barry’s One! Hundred! Demons! Lynda begins the book with a comic about how she discovered the Japanese sumi-e brush and ink method. At the end of the book, she shows everyone how they can paint their own demons.
If you head over to Lynda’s YouTube page you can also watch videos of her explaining sumi-e ink and also a brand-new video of her taking her own pocket brush pen for a spin.
I used to think that the best way to “freewrite” in your diary was to write really fast…
One of the biggest things I learned from Lynda was that writing extremely slowly with a brush is a way to give your “monkey mind” something to do, freeing up your subconscious to send stuff to your hand that you didn’t even know was there. (I keep one of her manuscript pages up in my studio as inspiration.)
Above, for example, is yesterday’s diary page. (I draw the ghosts until words come.)
Sometimes I start drawing and no words come at all, so I just keep drawing. (I’ll often copy a photograph if I’m really empty.) Here’s a suitably spooky page from a few years ago.
I love to hand the brush over to one of my kids and see what they do with it. Above is a comix jam in my diary I drew with my 6-year-old. (The figures on the right are me, Sonic the Hedgehog, and the 6-year-old.)
You can refill the brush pen cartridges with an ink pot and syringe.
The only problem I have with these brush pens is that I burn through the ink cartridge refills like crazy. But I recently learned you can refill them with your own pot of ink and a syringe. (Watch here.)
(And if you’re curious how I hack these pens for color, check out this post I wrote about that very thing.
Happy drawing, y’all!